


The Mirror

by a_crystal_ball



Category: Mighty Boosh RPF
Genre: M/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-01
Updated: 2008-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-14 00:45:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_crystal_ball/pseuds/a_crystal_ball
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Noel, Julian, a booty call and a mirror. Mmm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted as a last-minute birthday present for [](http://justqueenie.livejournal.com/profile)[**justqueenie**](http://justqueenie.livejournal.com/). All of my greatest thanks go to her for putting up with years of my writing-related neuroses. Also posted with thanks to [](http://thieving-gypsy.livejournal.com/profile)[**thieving_gypsy**](http://thieving-gypsy.livejournal.com/) for crossing my Ts, dotting my Is and generally saying lovely things; and to everybody who encouraged me to post on BSH, including [](http://obeythebunny.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://obeythebunny.livejournal.com/)**obeythebunny** and  >[](http://coeur-de-noir.livejournal.com/) **coeur_de_noir**

**Title:**

[The Mirror](http://a-crystal-ball.livejournal.com/647.html#cutid1) **  
**  
Pairing: Noel/Julian RPS **  
**  
Summary/prompt: a response to the “Julian rolling his eyes and fucking Noel in front of a mirror” prompt on[](http://colour-me-troll.livejournal.com/profile)[ **colour_me_troll**](http://colour-me-troll.livejournal.com/)’s [shameless anon boosh porn memes](http://colour-me-troll.livejournal.com/80562.html) **  
**  
Word Count: 3,900ish **  
**  
Rating: NC-17 **  
**  
Warnings: Just slash **  
**  
Disclaimer: Not mine; no money made. **  
**  
Author’s Notes: Originally posted as a last-minute birthday present for [](http://justqueenie.livejournal.com/profile)[**justqueenie**](http://justqueenie.livejournal.com/). All of my greatest thanks go to her for putting up with years of my writing-related neuroses. Also posted with thanks to [](http://thieving-gypsy.livejournal.com/profile)[**thieving_gypsy**](http://thieving-gypsy.livejournal.com/) for crossing my Ts, dotting my Is and generally saying lovely things; and to everybody who encouraged me to post on BSH, including [](http://obeythebunny.livejournal.com/profile)[**obeythebunny**](http://obeythebunny.livejournal.com/) and   
[](http://coeur-de-noir.livejournal.com/profile)  
[](http://coeur-de-noir.livejournal.com/) **coeur_de_noir**

  


Julian rests his head against the car window and ponders the nature of karma. There's an odd western distortion of the theory, a palatable concept that's useful in movies and yoghurt adverts, and it centres on the idea that everything comes back to us in equal measures. The universe has a finite and perfectly balanced amount of good and bad to dish out, and, in short, humankind reaps what it sows. Julian, on the other hand, is fairly sure that cosmic payback works according to some kind of exponential growth principle. Seeds have a habit of sprouting, after all.  
   
Noel is a perfect example of this principle. Because Noel has a special place in his heart for Other People, because he has time for them and genuinely finds them interesting, the universe has decreed that Noel will almost always mean more to people than they mean to him.  
   
The cab driver finishes his story and accelerates away from the lights. "Hey, you'll never guess who else I had in this cab one time."  
   
Julian is pretty sure he could guess. After all, there are only so many easily-recognisable people who are also regulars on the London party scene, and half of them are on Noel's MySpace account. He thinks about making a facetious comment on the subject, but instead thumbs randomly up and down through the messages on his phone and says, "Who?"  
   
"Charlotte Church. She was pissed as a fucking newt, mate, I can tell you."  
   
At this point there are three thoughts running through Julian's mind. One is that Charlotte Church was out of it the last time he saw her, too. And, because pretty much every memory he has is tied to a similar, corresponding memory of Noel, the second is a visual memory of the last time he saw Noel drunk. This second memory is superimposed over the image of Charlotte in her Miu Miu black dress and kitten heels, and consists of Noel twirling on the dance floor, his sweat-soaked hair sticking to the stubble on his jaw, his lips swollen from the inebriated blowjob he'd just given Julian in the toilets. Noel and Charlotte's glassy eyes and inane smiles blur for a minute and then separate, and running over both memories is the same thought that's been plaguing him since he got Noel's text: he hasn't seen him yet, he can still turn back.  
   
All of these thoughts take a second to pass through Julian's mind, and, because he is used to numerous, incongruous thoughts tripping over themselves to get noticed by his conscious mind, he barely lets the cabbie finish before raising an eyebrow and asking, "Oh really? What was she like, then?"  
   
The cabbie begins some hackneyed story about creeping hemlines and girls practically falling out of the car and onto the pavement, and Julian lets the part of his brain that can record speech and play it back in a nanosecond listen to it because he is about to turn the corner into Noel's road, and every step he takes along this path is making it harder to turn back.  
   
"…Of course that was a couple of years ago, now. That'll be eleven twenty, mate."  
   
Julian roots around in his pocket for a two pound coin to go with his note, and all the while he is thinking how easy it would be to tell the cabbie he's changed his mind, to get him to turn around and bring him back to his family, back to his half-finished book and his comfy new armchair, back to his comfy new life. Even the excuses would be easier if he went back now, yet somehow he finds himself handing over fifteen pounds in notes. "Call it twelve pounds?"  
   
"Ta, mate." Julian watches the light glare off the cabbie's glasses as he dips his head to pick out the change. "You ever met anyone famous, then?"  
   
"Nah." Julian gets out of the cab and leans through the open window, purposefully running his fingers over the bottom of the window frame. "You don't get out much when you have leprosy." And before the cabbie has a chance to respond, he's strolling down the road and swinging open Noel's front gate.  
   
The lights of the cab are retreating around a distant corner, and he's almost completely alone. He can still turn back, follow the cab to the main road, hail another one and be back home before anybody even has the chance to miss him. But home is becoming an ever-more distant concept in his mind, so far removed from the hard concrete he's standing on and the warm, damp air he's breathing that he's not sure if it's ten minutes or ten days since he felt his phone vibrate under the pillow, read the text three times and then slipped noiselessly out of bed.  
   
He raises his hand to ring the doorbell and thinks better of it, fishing his phone from his pocket and hitting Noel's number on speed dial.  
   
"I'm not here. I'm not here. I'm not here, I'm running in the fields with Arnold."  
   
"Fuck off, Fielding, I know that's you."  
   
"Liar, you're just taking your chances because you haven't heard a beep yet."  
   
"I've listened to that answer phone message enough times to know the difference. Are you gonna let me in, or what?"  
   
"Door's open." There's a click, followed by dead air.  
   
Julian pushes open the door and takes it off the latch before climbing the stairs and toeing open the bedroom door. "Nine fifteen-year-old goth girls figure out where you live not three days ago, and you think it's OK to leave your door unlocked?"  
   
Noel is applying eyeliner in what looks like the full-length mirror from the bathroom door propped up behind one of the kitchen stools. "Oh yeah, I forgot about that." He puts down the eyeliner pencil and makes his way unsteadily over several large sheets of thin A1 card, wobbling slightly in his knee-high heeled boots. He kisses Julian on the cheek and lingers, his face pressed side-by-side with Julian's, his nose burrowing into Julian's neck as he inhales, slowly. "You wore the jacket, then," he murmurs.  
   
"It's the same jacket I always wear." Julian moves his arm from where it's instinctively come to rest, snaked around Noel's waist. "And you have got to stop sending me fucking booty calls at 3am in the morning, Noel. I've got kids now."  
   
Noel pulls away, running his fingers up and down Julian's zip. "Do you want me to start sending them at 3am in the afternoon, then?" He turns and makes his way back over the dark paper sea to grab a hairbrush. "And I know you've got kids. I like your kids; they're like little mini-Barratts. You didn't have to come, you know." He addresses this last comment to Julian's reflection, raising his eyes to the mirror, pointedly.  
   
"I know I didn't. I wanted to come." Julian perches on the end of the bed, lowering his gaze in defeat.  
   
"Don't sit there, that's the wall."  
   
Julian pats the bedspread next to where he's sitting. "I think you're going to have to explain this one, dear."  
   
Noel ignores the gesture and climbs into Julian's lap, splaying his hands across Julian's chest as Julian's left arm winds around Noel's waist again, his right hand absently petting Noel's hair. "Do you remember when we went to that club off New Oxford Street and you fucked me in the alley?"  
   
Julian's cock twitches in his pants. He has a vivid image of Noel's back pressed flush against his front, his fingers digging into Noel's hip and breastbone to keep him in place. "I remember. I was off my tits, though. So were you."  
   
"You were jealous because I was talking to some girl."  
   
"Like fuck I was. She was annoying me."  
   
"You were jealous."  
   
"She was a junkie."  
   
"Whatever. You still wanted me."  
   
"I never said I didn't."  
   
Noel giggles into Julian's beard, and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. Julian feels heavy eyelashes scrape together against his cheek. "You dragged me out of the club and pulled down my pants like a monolithic caveman."  
   
Julian puffs out a laugh into Noel's hair. "A _monolithic_ caveman?"  
   
"Neolithic, then. Whatever you call it. It was hot." Noel draws out the "h" of "hot", generating a little current of warm air against Julian's ear. "You never do me from behind."  
   
"That's because you like it better the other way. And it wasn't hot, it was stupid. Anybody could have seen us."  
   
Noel kicks his boots playfully against the foot of the bed. "It was hot."  
   
"It was gross. You were leaning against a bin, and I was standing in what smelled like a mixture of rotting cabbage and... terps, actually."  
   
"It wasn't gross, they were magic bins. They were mystical carriages from another realm, protecting us from the prying eyes of  Soho... twats."  
   
"I saw a rat."  
   
"That was Larry. He's one of the magical bin rats. Every twelfth Saturday they fly down to the alley to see if they can see any filthy gay man-sex. They don't have TV where they come from, so that alley is like porn to them."  
   
"Rats watch human porn? Really?"  
   
"These ones do. We made it into their top ten."  
   
"Really? Well, I think we should watch some of their rat porn, then; repay the favour – it's only polite."  
   
"Yeah, but first you have to let me watch it." Noel's tongue flicks against the side of Julian's neck.  
   
Julian's brain struggles to keep up. "In the mirror?"  
   
"Yeah." Noel pushes Julian's jacket down with his face, pressing a kiss to his collarbone. "See, this is one wall of the alley, and the actual wall is the other wall. And the paper is the concrete. Because it's black."  
   
"I got that part, Fielding."  
   
"And those are the bins."  
   
"Those are upturned plastic boxes."  
   
"No, they're bins. And so's the stool. That's our special bin, because you can see through it properly."  
   
"You're such a narcissist."  
   
"Yeah, but you love it." Noel jumps off Julian's lap and pulls him to his feet. "The bedroom door is the club door."  
   
"There's no corner," Julian tells his shoes.  
   
"Use your fucking imagination, Ju. We'll sort it out with back projections later, OK?"  
   
Julian stands rooted to the spot for a moment, still staring at the floor. Noel creeps into Julian's personal space and pouts up at him. "Pleease, Juju? You'll like it, I promise."  
   
Julian rolls his eyes. "Where have I heard that before?"  
   
Noel's face splits into a grin as he goes to stand in the doorway. "Every single time I take you to unequalled levels of sexual pleasure. Ready?"  
   
"Yeah." Julian covers his face with the palms of his hands. Images of Noel bending over and taking Julian's fingers inside himself are so strong he can almost see them against the inside of his eyelids. When he drops his hands from his face it's as if he has used them to graft a whole other personality over his skin.  
   
Noel's eyes go dark.  
   
Julian strides across the room, grabbing Noel's bicep. "We're leaving," he states matter-of-factly into Noel's ear.  
   
"Aw, come on Ju, I haven't finished me drink yet."  
   
Julian mimes snatching the half-drunk bottle of beer from Noel's hand and downs it in one. "Now you have."  
   
They pass through the door, and Julian jerks Noel forcefully around the end of the bed and down the paper alley, dragging him with so much force that his feet barely touch the ground. They're hidden from view behind a row of plastic bins, and Julian shoves Noel against the wall, driving his tongue into his mouth as Noel drags his thigh up in between Julian's legs, the sole of his boot flat against the wall.  
   
Julian gentles the kiss, tucking Noel's hair behind his ear. He draws back and jerks his head towards the stool. "OK?"  
   
"OK." Noel leans forward, bracing his weight with both hands against the stool. Then he thinks better of it and shifts so that one hand is on the stool and the other is on a stack of three upturned storage boxes. The full length of his body is visible along the side of the mirror.  
   
"Exhibitionist," Julian whispers into Noel's ear, before unbuttoning Noel's fly and tugging down his jeans and underwear in one fluid movement.  
   
Julian drinks in both views of Noel, front and back, his skinny jeans pulled down to the rim of his boots and his nipples sticking hard against the thin fabric of the black Darkside tee-shirt with the cut-off sleeves.  
   
"You're forgetting part of it," Noel pouts, a little breathlessly this time.  
   
Julian sighs and shrugs off his jacket. "It's freezing out here, I don't want you to get cold."  
   
"Thanks." Noel's swollen lips barely part to speak the word as he slips his arms inside the jacket. His voice has dropped at least an octave.  
   
Julian spits into his hand, working his way inside Noel with one finger. "Do you want me to use--"  
   
"No." Noel pushes down against Julian's finger. "Want it to be the same."  
   
Julian plunges another finger inside Noel, his other hand working its way under the back of his tee-shirt, into his hair, down his broad back and slim hips, over the curve of his arse.  
   
Noel's harsh breathing is punctuated with sporadic groans. He chokes on one as Julian angles his fingers, pulling Noel upright and devouring his neck and the sides of his face with hungry kisses. Julian fumbles in his jacket pocket for his wallet, reaching around to where the hard bulge of it is dangling in front of Noel's naked cock. "Forget it," Noel pants, scrabbling around on the dresser beside the mirror and producing a foil-wrapped condom.  
   
Noel practically shrieks as Julian yanks his fingers out, tearing the packet open quickly and unzipping himself before rolling the condom down his entire length. He realises as he does so that his cock is leaking and wonders absently how long it's been doing it. In the instant before he bends Noel back over the stool he realises that Noel's cock is leaking too, dripping a random, soggy pattern onto the black card. He grabs the wallet from his jacket as an afterthought and throws it into the mess. It landed in a puddle of slime last time, too.  
   
Julian inches his way inside Noel with painstaking concentration, pausing every so often to shuffle forwards and straighten Noel upwards towards his chest. Even in heels Noel is too short to stand completely straight without fully impaling himself, and they end up bending very slightly over the stool and boxes, Noel supporting their weight with his hands.  
   
Julian tucks his head over Noel's shoulder and watches the show.  
   
Noel's cheeks are flushed and his lips, stained red by their kissing, are parted loosely. The black tee-shirt is pushed up past his waist under the too-big jacket. Julian watches, hypnotised, as his own big arm coils around Noel's tiny waist, his fingers wrapping around Noel's cock. The visuals are so strong they're blocking out his sense of touch, and he watches his own hand as if it belongs to somebody else, pumping loosely, up and down.  
   
The angle is so steep and Noel's legs are pulled so closely together by the tight jeans below his knees that Julian can manage to do little more than grind his hips counter-clockwise. Noel rotates his own hips clockwise in a counterpoint, using his hands to push his weight back into Julian with every downward motion.  
   
Julian is caught between licking, nibbling and sucking every square inch of available skin and watching his hand slide ever-tighter over Noel's wet, engorged cock. In the end he settles for alternating between the two. His other hand comes around to cup Noel's tightening balls. He is deviating from the script, but Noel doesn't seem to care, his breath hitching in stuttering gasps and small, disbelieving moans, providing the soundtrack to Julian's oddly detached visuals. Flyaway strands of Noel's hair float in front of his eyes, flickering across his vision like film grain, and Noel with his black clothes and porcelain white skin becomes the heroine in Julian's own sordid film noir.  
   
They fuck in a steady rhythm for an interminable amount of time until Julian's gaze flicks up to fully meet Noel's eyes for the first time, and suddenly the universe grinds to a halt. Time is playing tricks, freezing them in place in this moment, because, as Julian looks into Noel's eyes, several things become apparent at once. The first is that Noel is already looking at his face. The second, revealed by the wide, rabbit-in-headlights stare that he receives, is that Noel has not taken his eyes off Julian's face for one second the entire time they've been fucking. The third is that Noel is looking at him with such an open and unguarded expression of adoration that Julian's entire world is turned on its axis, and he could swear that if time weren't holding him in this protracted freeze-frame he would actually be falling to the floor right now. The fourth thing that Julian becomes aware of is that the sudden and unexpected eye-contact is making Noel come, his mouth jerking open in surprise. All of this information bombards Julian's sex-stupid brain together with the image of Noel's thoroughly mussed hair framing his still-staring eyes and the sound of a sudden, surprised groan that is probably his own. And then Noel's arse is contracting around Julian's cock and time resumes its normal pace. Every suspended sensation returns to Julian at once, hitting him like a freight train; and he's coming, too, emptying himself into the space between the condom and his own skin, pressing harder and harder into Noel as if this will somehow break the barrier between them.  
   
They crumble to the floor in a sticky heap, Julian's cock coming loose as Noel tilts forward for balance. He pries the condom off, tying off the end and flinging it across the paper as Noel turns in his arms and buries his face against his chest. Julian realises that he is softly whispering Noel's name over and over again like a mantra. He forces his mouth to close, but cannot seem to free Noel from the full-body hug he has him in. He manages to stretch an arm behind him, grabbing the corners of the bedspread and duvet, and dragging them over their curled bodies.  
   
For a short time they slumber in the pre-dawn light, the covers cocooning them from the world; but slowly, inevitably, the world begins to right itself. A sliver of sunlight peeks through the curtains, chasing shadows from the room. Somewhere outside a rubbish truck is reversing, its high-pitched alarm shrieking through the silence.  
   
"Julian." Noel's voice seems strangely loud in the small room.  
   
Julian tightens his grip.  
   
"Ju." Noel's voice is gossamer-soft. "It's time to go home."  
   
A single thought ignites in the back of Julian's mind. He hasn't left Noel yet, it's not too late to stay. If they pack now and jump on a train they never need to speak to anybody they know ever again.  
   
"Move your legs, ya big hearthrug, my arse is going to sleep on this floor." Noel gingerly untangles his arms and legs, rolls over Julian and lifts himself onto the bed, dragging the covers with him. "Ouch. It seems a shame to wake it. Perhaps I'll just lie here and read a magazine while my arse has a little sleepy." He peers over the covers as Julian peels himself from the black card.  
   
Julian moves to sit beside Noel on the bed, tracing a thumb over Noel's cheekbone and tucking the covers tighter around him. He drags a pillow under Noel's head. "Does your arse need a pillow, too?"  
   
"Nah, there's enough cushioning on my arse already."  
   
"Whatever, Skeletor."  
   
"Oi!" Noel throws a pillow at Julian's head. It whizzes over him and hits the wall as he bends to retrieve his wallet before walking down the hallway to the bathroom.  
   
As Julian closes the door behind him, he thinks it's still not too late. He can drag Noel in here, run a hot bath and lie back while Noel rides him slowly, his hand tangled in his own hair, just like in Edinburgh. And then they can jump on the tube to Kings Cross, get on a Eurostar, go somewhere, anywhere. He clenches his fist and settles for soaping the cum off his cock in the bathroom sink. He then begins scrubbing around his fingernails so hard that he knocks one of Dee's glass bottles from the side into the bowl, and for one irrational second he is panicked beyond belief that he may have broken something rare and expensive of hers that cannot be replaced. He wipes down his wallet as best as he can with a piece of wet toilet paper, and goes back to the bedroom to retrieve his jacket.  
   
Kissing Noel goodbye never gets any easier, and he does it as quickly as he possibly can, grazing Noel's cheek with his lips.  
   
"Hey, Ju, I've had an idea for the live tour. Why don’t we have Tony Harrison and Rudi on a flying carpet? It'll be genius."  
   
"Yeah." Julian blinks hard, twice. "Yeah, magic carpets, we need more of those. Well, I'll see you in the office on Tuesday, yeah?" And with that he turns to leave, wondering all the while why his legs are taking him down the stairs and not back to Noel's bed, why his hand is opening the door when he could just march right back to Noel and tell him--  
   
His brain cuts him off mid-thought. There's a bus two streets away that will take him near enough to home. He can walk the rest of the way from there.  
   
Every step that's taking him farther away from Noel is taking him one step closer to a quiet life of crushing guilt where he knows the lie that has already sprung to the tip of his tongue will be swallowed without question. And every step towards the slowly spreading daylight, towards his family, towards comfort and routine is taking him one step further from his and Noel's shared reality, their world-of-two.  
   
A young construction worker is nudging his friend at the bus stop. He's recognised him from the telly. Julian wonders how he can look so familiar to them when Noel's touch is still searing his skin, or how the world can still look the same at all when Noel has just changed it beyond all recognition with a single look.  
   
The bus pulls up and Julian gets on, every inch of the journey home making it harder and harder to turn back. He gets off at an earlier stop, making the walk home longer, giving him more time to change his mind. Yet still, when there are no steps left in his journey he finds himself with one hand flat against his own front door. He fishes his phone from his jacket pocket and opens Noel's 3am text message, scrolling the cursor up and down through the text for what seems like an age.  
   
He finally hits delete, and turns the key in the door.

   
   



End file.
